My Friend Rose

My Friends #9

by Jane Duncan

Dee Andrews is a problem child. On the day that she bursts into her father's office in London, she initiates for his secretary, Janet Sandison, a chain reaction of problems. Janet, aged twenty-five, and strictly brought up in the Highlands of Scotland, has no notion of encouraging the tantrums of a self-willed little girl. Dee is quickly drawn to someone whom she cannot help but respect.

As a result, Janet becomes Dee's governess and spends the next two years in the luxurious country house, Daneford, which is dominated by Dee's stepmother, the beautiful, vulgar, uninhibited Rose. Dee despises Rose who, spoiled and extravagant, pursues one objective--her own pleasure. As her indiscretions mount, she loses all control. In the privacy of her over-ornate bedroom she drinks to excess, and summons Janet to boast of her own adulterous love affair. Janet, though horrified, is fascinated by a type of individual she has not before encountered. But her tact and sympathy are insufficient to prevent the inevitable disaster.

Dee's father divorces Rose and remarries. Janet returns to London and drifts into an engagement that she soon realizes to be unsuitable and intolerable. But once again her personal feelings are governed by a sense of pity and responsibility.

Lacking the determination to extricate herself, Janet is in despair when, unexpectedly, she encounters Rose who has degenerated into a travesty even of herself. Rose's crude, drunken truths trigger Janet's escape.

A few years later Janet meets and marries Twice Alexander. But she does not neglect the now pathetic Rose. Nor are Janet and Twice neglected by the now attractive and possessively winning Dee. And again Dee thrusts problems into Janet's life.

Genres: Fiction

250 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1964

About the author

Jane Duncan was the pseudonym of Scottish writer Elizabeth Jane Cameron, best-known for her My Friends series of semi-autobiographical novels. She also wrote four novels under the name of her principal heroine Janet Sandison, and some children's books. She was born in Renton, West Dunbartonshire and brought up in the Scottish Lowlands where her father was a police officer, but much of her childhood was spent in the Highlands on the Black Isle in Easter Ross, on her grandparents' croft "The Colony", the "Reachfar" of her novels. She graduated in English from the University of Glasgow and did various secretarial jobs before serving as a Flight Officer (Intelligence), WAAF during World War II. Afterward, she lived in Jamaica for ten years, returning to Jemimaville, near "The Colony", in 1958 as a widow. In 1959 Duncan became something of a publishing sensation when Macmillan Publishers announced that it would be publishing seven of her manuscripts. The "Reachfar" (My Friends) series is narrated by Janet Sandison and follows her life (which in outline parallels that of the author) from the World War I period through to the 1960s, depicting the people she encounters and showing how her crofting upbringing influences her in whatever society and geographical location she finds herself.

Reviews

[Fiona Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a programme about growing up and about making your own set of internal rules and morality whilst reassessing those conditioned into us as children. Again, we go back to Janet's earlier life as a secretary in the 1930s where she meets the wealthy Andrews family. She meets Dee, the child of the family, through her job as secretary to her father, Roy. Dee loathes her step mother, Rose, who is a complete mystery to Janet as her family at Reachfar provided no real structure or moral code that captured the essence of Rose. Janet needs up being recruited to be a governess to Dee at their big country house in Buckinghamshire. Through this set up, Janet witnesses some of the harsh realities of married life and develops her own thinking and her own moral code, drawing heavily on Reachfar. Dee drops out of her life when Roy and Rose divorce but comes back when Janet and Twice are about to return to St Jago but have a few days in London...and Rose also features at the end as well. Through her vicious talking Rose opens up other people's eyes to their own reality...and Janet finds throughout that she is actually quite fond of the rude, coarse, vulgar alcoholic that is her friend Rose.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the last of the "My Friends" books left for me to find, and I enjoyed it so much I wish I had found it sooner. Rose is the wife of Janet's employer, and Rose's golden contrast with her environment shakes Janet loose from some of the values of her Highland upbringing. There is also Dee, the troubled daughter of the employer. The conflicts within that family force Janet into recognition of what she truly values. Most striking for the reader is the vivid humanity of the characters.

[Ika Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the ninth volume of a 19-book series which I think of as a single, serial, work. I've written longer reviews of Book 13, My Friend My Father (here: no spoilers for the series), and Book 19, My Friends George and Tom (a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... masses and masses of spoilers), as well as some brief reflections about Book 18, My Friends The Misses Kindness (a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... again, massive spoilers for the series) and Book 16, My Friend the Swallow (a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., spoiler-free).

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did write a review, but sadly Goodreads lost it. In summary, not one of the better ones, both because it is filling in past pieces (which I find less convincing) and because it is simply not very interesting, there is nothing new in it. Rose is another of Duncan's horrible women -- why no horrible men? -- but this time Janet finds her sympathetic, the narcissist as the helpless child, I suppose. But it still does not hang together for me, because one would expect her to be able to generalise and draw a line from all these dots.

[scarlettraces · Rating 4 out of 5]

back to Janet's mid-20s and her first encounter with someone who makes her re-evaluate her family's moral certainties. her descriptions of the opening up of her world as she starts to question the way things are ring very true.

[Alexis Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these books although they were written a long time ago! Jane Duncan a Scot, who lived in the Caribbean,for many years, wrote her books in the linen cupboard because her husband didn't approve. These are funny gentle books that lift your spirit. Duncan also writes as Janet Sandison.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than I thought. Duncan draws you into domestic dramas and things don't always turn out as you might predict.